"A Moogle Kupo d'Etat" mini-review

The news that the "Waltz -2" augment was a -2 seconds off the waltz recast timer pretty much meant that I would be picking up this mini-expansion just to get the hat for Dancer. This is the only piece of gear in-game that gives the Dancer job a much needed boost to one of the biggest limitations of the job.

By Thursday, the expansion had been completed many times by many people, and all of it's secrets and tricks were out. The farming rush was already over, so I activated the expansion and started on it late Thursday night.

By Saturday night, I was done with the expansion and now have my hat :o

Fast expansion by any standards... here's a mini-review on the expansion and how it compares to ACP

Storyline

Story wise, ACP really... really... sucked. It tried to be some grand big story similar to Zilart and failed miserably, especially with the ending which almost turned out to mean that it was all just one big dream. AMK's story is a lot more whimsical and silly. The cutscenes are definitely a cut above the ACP ones just for how silly they are... so I'd say that's a win.

"Farming" quests

The biggest annoyance I had with ACP was the stupid fetch quests where you had to go kill mobs for rare/ex items, then later again for the weird "key items" that had a random chance of appearing. In both expansions, I did this part of the quest after the initial rush had died down, so competition for mobs was not a problem.

ACP had a huge problem here with the stupid low drop rates. I clearly remember spending hours on just one single item, driven to the point of cursing before it would drop, only to run into the exact same problem the next zone I had to farm in. Apparently they've adjusted drop rates now as both Zurar and Vanh reported that it was easy to get it... AMK also has the high drop rate as I managed to get all the drops in under 5 minutes from entering the various zones.

The HELM quest that they put in to AMK was an interesting change. I've never done HELM before, so it was something different... Of course, by the time I did it, the trick about having a full inventory so that you can keep using the same mining/harvesting/logging point was up on the wiki, so it only took a few minutes to get through this part

The chocobo digging part was pretty fun. I'd never done the chocobo hot & cold game, so it was an interesting introduction to it. I might start playing with this aspect of FFXI since I do have a chocobo with burrowing & treasure finder :o

Overall, AMK > ACP for the farming aspect

"Lowbie fight"

The lowbie fight in AMK is against cardians... and the bad news about this is that you have to farm up some weird orbs from cardians to be able to pop them. The other bad part is that these cardians are in a dungeon, so they have a long respawn time. When I zoned into the ruins, there was basically not a single cardian in sight -.-

The good news is that all it took was a simple /tell to a group that was already there farming the orbs and I was able to join their fight and finish this in a few minutes. However, if they weren't inclined to help, I'd have probably had to spend a few hours here with competition waiting for super-slow respawns in order to even pop the fight -.-

In contrast, the ACP fight was a simple multi-wave fight that just required touching a spot... I'd say ACP > AMK for this.

"Fetch" quests

Like ACP, AMK has some fetching that you have to do before every attempt for the middle fight. ACP has a fetch quest all around Fei Yin, while AMK's fetch quest is in Quicksand Caves.

What I did like about this fetch quest is that it used the "marker" feature on your maps to show you where to go for every single ???. I haven't seen this feature used since... well... the very beginning of the game where they mark where you should hand your adventurer coupon in to get your starting gil. Of course, this meant that everyone doing this quest needed the map for Quicksand Caves... good thing they adjusted those coffers to repop instantly.

The bad thing about this fetch quest is that QSC is... annoyingly spread out across two zones. Add to that all the secret unmarked zone lines and the various maps, it makes this fetch quest take a really long time to do, even with the Swift Shoes buff. Compared to Fei Yin, doing this takes a lot longer, a minimum of 30 minutes if you know exactly where everything is and what the fastest route to get around ~.~

Sadly, I'd say that I prefer the ACP Fei Yin fetch quest over this, even though I liked the way that the maps were used.

Middle fight

The middle fight in AMK didn't strike me as anything special. Anything that a balanced party + sleeper should be able to handle... similar to the ACP Fei Yin fight. Nanaa Mihgo has an evil TP move that can nearly one-shot anyone, but that's no big deal since you can virtually zerg her down once you start fighting her.

I thought the ACP fight was slightly move innovative with the goblin that would Sneak Attack people at random. It meant that you couldn't just assume that you were safe because mobs were not on you at that time, and it also made tanking the fight a little more interesting since you had to pay attention to all the mobs and be able to grab the goblin when it wanders off.

"Final fight" quest

I thought the minigames that lead up to the AMK final fight were quite interesting. The basic puzzle quest in the glacier required some thinking to figure out even if you knew the rules behind it. It also used the map in an innovative manner. The Xarcabard minigame was fun, required quick thinking, and had little consequence of losing since you can just redo it right there. If you noticed the pattern in the answers, it becomes almost too easy xD

The "climb" quest was simple too... unlike the frustrating tower climb of ACP, this one isn't too bad since you can easily make the initial level 1 sneak to the castle with the initial sneak/invis that they give you if you don't make any wrong turns. The last minigame isn't even a game at all, just a matter of poking a spot on the way up.

AMK definitely wins on the minigames! Having a 5 minute flee also made for some fun :)

Final fight

No question about it... the AMK final fight is a lot more fun compared to ACP. First off you're fighting a... giant moogle! He throws bombs at you and doesn't do too much damage at first... and he summons friends for you to poke.

Ranged attack and magic nukes are definitely the way to go with the giant moogle, though you do want some heavy DDs as well to take out the summoned mobs as well as the final push to the end. The big moogle has an evil stunga move that lasts for a very long time, meaning that most parties that lose this fight either lose to not being able to recover from a stunga, or not sleeping the helpers in time. 5 moogles casting a -aga spell on your party can pretty much wipe it in one shot.

I think Scholar is the ultimate job for this fight... First off, party-wide Stoneskin & Phalanx mean that the stunga move gives you a little more leeway and time to cure people back up to full health. Secondly, since all the helpers that are summoned are BLMs, all it takes is a single Manifestation+Aspir to get back to near full MP. Scholar nuking damage on this fight can easily match a BLM's due to our MP efficiency as well since this isn't a "timed nuke" situation, but rather one where you let hate ping-pong around all the nukers.

This is definitely a fun, if hectic fight. And the best part is that you don't really have to use tricks to avoid the mob's moves... You're fighting the mob straight on and letting skill determine if you win or not. Compare this to the ACP final fight where the two strategies are to either zerg it down in a few seconds, or have a tank do a "yo-yo" trick so you can avoid the charm move.

I'd willingly do the AMK fight again! That's a fun one :)

Conclusion

Overall... I think "a Moogle Kupo d'Etat" beats out ACP for content. It's funny, does some interesting things for a change, and has a fun final fight that virtually any job can participate in. The consequences for losing are not as annoying as it is relatively easy to set up again for the final fight (takes about 30 minutes to redo the minigames without any stress of being killed)

Is it worth $10? Mmmm.... most definitely not... and I'm saying this after I spent $10 to watch Transformers 2 in the theater -.-;

Is it RMT? Yes, most definitely so... I'm still wondering if SE is using this as an experiment to see how much RMT they can get away with in FFXIV... Maybe the future of SE MMOs is that if you want the best gear, you not only have to spend lots of time camping NMs/farming things, but you also have to pay SE for the privilege of being able to attempt to get it. Maybe they'll do something like have a "Dynamis" expansion where you have to pay an extra $2/month to be able to enter the zone...

Extra

So... at the end of the day, I picked up the Anwig salade with the "Waltz -2", Chr+6 and "Enhances Fast Cast +2" augments. Strictly a macro piece for Waltzes. There's a debate going on in the Dancer forums as to which is a better piece, this or the Etoile Tiara. Basically the Tiara has a higher HP cured/TP ratio, while the Anwig has a higher HP cured/time ratio. For Healing Waltz, there's no debate that the Anwig is a good piece.

Of course, buying the expansion on Thursday specifically for a DNC hat means that Dynamis on Saturday I would get my Etoile Tiara (+1) xD So... instead of having one Waltz hat, I have two hats that I need to decide how to use!

I decided to use the Anwig for the waltzes I use the most, which could benefit the most from having 2 second removed from the recast timer. These are Curing Waltz III and Divine Waltz. Of course I also added it to Healing Waltz. I'm not concerned about the higher TP usage due to spamming the Waltzes simply cos I've never actually had a TP concern on DNC before. I'm using the Etoile Tiara +1 on Curing Waltz II & IV. Curing Waltz II does not benefit as much from the -2 seconds recast since it has a short recast in the first place, and I figure that if I'm using IV, I really want to cure as much as possible for some reason or else I'd simply be using III. Also, 5% on a large number does go a longer way!

5/6 on DNC AF now! I just need the tights to complete the set... Given how BMO has grown, I really doubt we'll be doing Tavnasia anytime soon, so my only hope for these will be from glacier... Hope we go there soon!